Did youthful tasings toughen Redskins snapper?

A day before the Raiders special teams revealed their new speciality – long snapping the ball into the turf – the Washington Redkins were having their own kicking-game crisis.

Their long snapper, Nick Sundberg, got his arm caught between a helmet and a facemask during a punt that was blocked by the Saints and returned for a touchdown. Sundberg knew it was broken – he had had fractured the same bone in high school – and doctors on the sidelines urged him to get an X-ray. Instead, he simply asked for a painkiller.

And then went back onto the field.

He snapped the ball four times for punts, twice for field goals and twice for extra points in the second half of Washington’s 40-32 win over New Orleans. Not once did he make his punter field a grounder on two or three hops – which is probably what Shane Lechler dreamt about last night in a cold sweat.

Sundberg’s pain must have been excrutiating.

“It was terrible, but I felt like I really didn’t have another option,” he said.

Where does Sundberg gets his off-the-charts pain threshold? Well, it might have something to do with his upbringing. Unlike most children, he regularly volunteered to be shocked with a Taser.

“First time I ever did it, I was 9. It was Bring-Your-Kid-to-Work day. My mom’s coworkers were messing with me and said, ‘You gonna take a hit today?’ And I said ‘Yeah!’ just trying to be cool or whatever, and my mom said, ‘Yeah, do it.’ I was like, ‘What?’ the only reason why I said yeah was because I was thinking she wasn’t going to let me do it. Sure enough, she did it.

“They got me twice that day. It hurts. Every time they come out with a new one, I’ve tried it. Except for this last one because I haven’t been around there a lot. But it hurts a lot. It completely incapacitates you. Usually it’s a five-second run time. All your muscles lock up. When we did it, we tried to do it as safely as possible. We’d have two guys stand there so you don’t face-plant. But the second it’s off, it’s off, and you’re like, ‘What did I just do?’ there’s no pain or anything. That’s why I was able to keep going back to it over and over again.”

Despite his ironman performance Sunday, Sundberg now must wear a bulky cast and will be out of commission for several weeks. The Redskins reportedly signed former Indianapolis Colts veteran Justin Snow as a temporary replacement.

No word yet on whether the Raiders will replace backup snapper Travis “I’m just a linebacker” Goethel, who was clearly not ready to fill in for injured starter Jon Condo.